down sewer-gratings parallel to the length of the road, instead of across it. The result, if the narrow wheel of a cycle catches in it, is sure to be a frightful accident: several such have occurred. The local authorities are bound to provide for the public safety, and to do them justice they seldom refuse when cases are properly brought under their notice; the general public could help cyclists very much by sending a postcard to the C.T.C. secretary, describing the locality of any longitudinal sewer-grating that they may observe. Our organisation will then be at once put into motion.

I have already mentioned that the number of members in the Club, according to the latest returns, is 16,625. The hotel headquarters and recommended inns number 1,000. The consuls exceed 800. The C.T.C. possesses chief consular divisions in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, &c., from each of which a considerable contingent of adherents is yearly obtained. It publishes a monthly Gazette of cycling doings, and Club matters in particular, besides the annual handbook and map. Its financial position is good-everything that could be desired: some 2,000l. stands to its credit, as a nucleus for a reserve fund, which could without hesitation be used for any adequate purpose relating to the interests of cycling.

The danger ahead of the two great cycling institutions is one incident to their rapidly increasing development. It consists mainly in the rapidly increasing demands made on volunteer labour. Both institutions are dependent for the most part on honorary work. This has been very freely given hitherto, but both institutions are assuming gigantic proportions, and the supply of competent workers is limited. A man who would willingly give a little of his time may well be dismayed when he finds his sitting-room turned into a regular public office, and his wife does not always look pleased when committee meetings take up two or three evenings a week. Whenever the point is reached when the honorary worker finds his labour of love an irksome tie, and a hindrance to the ordinary business of-life, sterner duties must assert their importance, and a willing worker, however enthusiastic, is compelled to retire. At present, fortunately, there is no sign of flagging. The supply of willing workers has equalled the demand. But the danger ahead is by no means imaginary.

Among the questions which have been dealt with conjointly by the N.C.U. and C.T.C., one is of especial interest to the general public-that of road repair. The system of keeping roads in order under surveyors who are appointed without even a rudimentary knowledge of the principles of road-making must surely be looked upon as a splendid specimen of the art How not to do it.' Few surveyors are so enthusiastic in their calling as one, well known to fame, who rode out to inspect his work on a bicycle. He was found,

with his machine in pieces beside him, standing on his head in the roadway. It was not till he had been restored to consciousness by the aid of a pocket flask, that he was able to explain his position. Such, he assured his friends, was his devotion to road-making, that he wished to observe the effect of his labours upside down. But that surveyor was a cyclist, which accounts for his self-devotion. Everybody is interested in good roads; but the public is weak, because disunited. It is nobody's business to enforce the law, and although many words are spoken that find no place in the Church Catechism, year after year passes away, and nothing is done. Among English roads that have been allowed to get out of repair those in the neighbourhood of Birmingham must be numbered. It occurred a few months ago to the local centre of the National Union that the influence of their Union might be brought to bear. Public meetings which they called were largely attended, by horse-owners and users as well as by cyclists. Eight road surveyors were summoned for neglecting to keep the roads in proper repair.' The magistrates, who were informed that the prosecution was undertaken in no spirit of vindictiveness, but on public grounds alone, eventually gave the defendants time, till the second week in February next, to put their roads in order. The hint thus given as to the state of the law, and the remedy for neglect, may be expected to bear much fruit ere long, and to extend far beyond the district which originated it.

Though not strictly a part of the organisation of cycling, the sociable plan of camp meetings, and what are called club rides, have become quite recognised institutions. Club rides are held as a rule by clubs throughout the country on every Saturday during the summer months. At the appointed place and hour the leader for the day gives the signal for departure and the party sally forth to some destination fifteen or twenty miles away, where they discuss a previously ordered meal, which seems now to have become generally designated as 'T.' They ride home by moonlight, in the same order in which they came.

The annual camp meeting is a more serious affair. It has been held for the last year or two at Harrogate. The principal occupations of a week spent under canvas would seem to be racing and photography. I have derived the impression, perhaps erroneously, that in the cycling ranks every third man at least is an amateur photographer. As they principally practise on each other, the matter is not so serious as it might at first appear. But if the portraits now made are preserved, future generations will form, I fear, a very unfavourable impression as to the average good looks among cyclists in 1884.

It may amuse the reader to hear what pace can be got out of the two- and three-wheeled machines. The Tricyclist, which comes opportunely to hand as I write, publishes a table, from which I gather materials for the following comparison of speed between a rider on a

bicycle and an American trotting-horse. As regards speed for a mile or two, or even several miles, there can be no comparison between the pace of a horse and that of a man on a bicycle. The horse is far and away the speedier; but after about twenty or five-and-twenty miles the horse, it seems, begins to come back to the man. The relative speed of horse and man, quite unencumbered by weight, has never been tried; as it is always necessary either to ride or drive a horse when he is being tried. But in comparing the best times on record of a trotting-horse driven in a light gig, as is the fashion in America, and a man riding and propelling a 27-lb. bicycle, the conditions, taking the relative strength of the contestants into consideration, may be thought tolerably equal. Maud S.,' Mr. Vanderbildt's celebrated horse, trotted one mile in 2 min. 9 sec.; the champion time for a bicycle is 2 min. 39 sec. Leaving out intermediate distances, I find that Lady Mack' did five miles in 13 min. O sec.; Mr. Hillier has ridden it on a bicycle in 14 min. 18 sec. 'Controller' did ten miles in 27 min. 234 sec.; Mr. English accomplished that distance in 29 min. 19 sec. Twenty miles was done by the horse "Capt. McGowan' in 58 min. 25 sec.; Mr. English, who holds the record for twenty miles, accomplished it in 59 min. 63 sec. Twenty miles well within the hour must surely be looked on as a wonderful performance. But after twenty miles the man rapidly begins to go to the front. The best fifty miles on record has been done by 'Ariel' in 3 h. 55 min. 40 seo.; but the Honourable Ion Keith-Falconer rode that distance on a bicycle in 2 h. 43 min. 583 sec.! Conqueror' travelled 100 miles in 8 h. 35 min. 53 sec.; F. R. Fry, on a bicycle, did 100 miles in 5 h. 50 min. 5 sec. The same distance, 100 miles, was done on the highroad by Mr. George Smith in 7 h. 11 min. 10 sec. The other times mentioned were performed on the cinder-path. No trial has been recorded for a horse beyond 100 miles. But a tricyclist has ridden 222 miles in 24 hours; and a few weeks ago, a performer on a newly invented little two-wheeled machine of strange appearance, called a Kangaroo, travelled 266 miles within the same time. It is therefore plain that in staying power a man on a bicycle, or even on a tricycle, which is a much heavier machine, not primarily adapted for racing, is infinitely superior to a horse. Probably up to twenty-five miles the best horse would beat the best bicyclist; but after that distance, the horse would, in yacht-racing phrase, never see the way his adversary went.

One parting word I ask permission to say as President of the N.C.U. I acknowledge with pleasure the increasing favour with which the public generally regard cycling; and I would venture to add that the demeanour of by far the greater number of riders deserves such recognition. The rules of the Union, and, indeed, the rules of every club throughout the country, contain stringent provisions for the enforcement, not only of the rules of the road,' but

for what, taken by itself, might seem quaintly ceremonious courtesy to passengers met or passed. Of course among such an enormous number there will certainly be found riders who are rude and inconsiderate; but it cannot be too widely known that, in any case where injury or discourtesy is encountered, a communication to the secretary of the offender's club, if his club be known, or an appeal to the N.C.U., would in all cases produce inquiry, apology from the offender, or reparation. I think it will be conceded that offences against sober and quiet demeanour are increasingly rare; but in any case it should be known that good order has no firmer friends than the ruling bodies, large and small, supported by the unanimous opinion of the general body whom they represent. The cyclist who careers about covered with braid, and blowing a bugle, must be looked upon as an individual young jackass, disporting himself after the manner of his kind. His vagaries are more objectionable to his brother cyclists than to anyone else. A good deal of nonsense has been talked about uniform.' Strictly speaking, such a thing is unknown; no doubt a peculiar cut of dress is almost a necessity for riding in comfort, and a plain suit of grey tweed has been very generally adopted, and for the sake of brevity is called a uniform. But it is all plain grey flannel and grey tweed, with no trimming or other nonsense about it. The C.T.C. is known by a little silver badge 1 inch square, pinned or hung at the button-hole. And of one thing I will venture to assure the reader, that whenever he meets the wearer of one of the grey suits he will receive a courteous acknowledgment of the kindness with which it is generally regarded. He will thus, I hope, look with ever-increasing goodwill on a pursuit which may truly be said to have added very considerably to the stock of national health, and, consequently, of human happiness.

BURY.

THE SAVAGE.

THERE are people in the world who are very fond of asking what they call point-blank questions. They generally profess to hate all shillyshallying, and they are at no pains to hide their suspicion that any one who declines to say yes or no to any question which they choose to ask has either his intellect clouded by metaphysics or has not the courage of his opinions. The idea that it is often more difficult to ask a sensible question than to answer it, and that a question, however pointed it may sound, may for all that be so blunt and vague that no accurate and honest thinker would care or dare to answer it, never enters their mind; while the thought that there are realms of knowledge where indefinite language is more appropriate, and in reality more exact and more truthful than the most definite phraseology, is scouted as mere fencing and intellectual cowardice. One of those point-blank questions which has been addressed to me by several reviewers of my books is this, 'Tell us, do you hold that man began as a savage or not?' To say that man began as a savage, and that the most savage and degraded races now existing present us with the primeval type of man, seems to be the shibboleth of a certain school of thought, a school with which on many points I sympathise, so long as it keeps to an accurate and independent inquiry into facts, and to an outspoken statement of its discoveries, regardless of all consequences, but from which I totally dissent as soon as it tries to make facts subservient to theories. I am told that my own utterances on this subject have been ambiguous. Now even granting this, I could never understand why a certain hesitation in answering so difficult a question should rouse such angry feelings, till it began to dawn on me that those who do not unreservedly admit that man began as a savage are supposed to hold that man was created a perfect and almost angelic being. This would amount to denying the gospel of the day, that man was the offspring of a brute, and hence, I suppose, the Anathema.

Now I may say this, that though I have hesitated to affirm that man began as a savage, whatever that may mean, I have been even more careful not to commit myself to the opinion that man began as an angel, or as a child, or as a perfect rational being. I strongly object to such alternatives as that if man did not begin as a savage he must